


Avant nous, le déluge

by holyfant



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, directly after the Battle of Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 05:11:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7154942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holyfant/pseuds/holyfant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"None of them could sleep, the first time they tried."</p><p>A little missing scene about what happened directly after Harry renounced the Elder Wand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Avant nous, le déluge

**Author's Note:**

> Another little practice scene; this was written in one of the first drafts of a big WIP I'm working on, but it got cut in subsequent edits. I cleaned it up a little, and here we are. This hasn't been beta'ed, so feel free to point out any errors or oversights.

None of them could sleep, the first time they tried.

 

They didn't talk about it, Ron and Hermione and him; they just went up to the Gryffindor Common Room and climbed the stairs to the boys' dorm in a single silent file. Harry didn't bother with taking off his clothes and simply collapsed onto the mattress of his four-poster, curling onto his side; vaguely he felt someone undoing the laces on his shoes and tugging them off. Hermione, he assumed, but he didn't open his eyes to check.

 

Harry felt like he was already asleep. His body felt blurry, his bones liquid. He couldn't quite feel his limbs. Hermione and Ron exchanged a few words in soft tones: they sounded like they were speaking a foreign language.

 

But then, as silence fell – he didn't sleep. The sunlight outside penetrated his eyelids, and his body was buzzing. He smelled the smoke in his hair, felt how the clean fabric of his pillow stuck to the grime on his face. Now that everything had gone quiet, he could hear the thumping of his blood, the hissing in his ears. In the hush, his thoughts sprang forward, galloping out of his control, bringing with them images that made his pulse jump: the lurid colour of the blood bubbling from between Snape's fingers, the vivid green of the Avada Kedavra speeding towards him, the scales shifting on the snake's coiling body as it got ready to lunge. The white glare of that odd, clean King's Cross. In response, his muscles tensed, ready to propel him into fighting.

 

He didn't know how long he lay there, pretending to be relaxed, trying to convince his mind that the danger had passed. Finally he gave up and opened his eyes. Ron's bed curtains were open, and Ron was sprawled on his back, the whites of his eyes shockingly visible as he stared up at the ceiling of his bed. The shape of the sheets on Seamus' bed suggested that Hermione was lying in it; as Harry watched, she rolled over and sighed audibly. Harry, witnessing all this, suddenly felt caught out; he pressed his eyes shut, pulse stuttering.

 

“'Mione.” Ron's voice was quiet and hoarse.

 

There was the rustle of sheets as Hermione turned again. “What?” she whispered.

 

“This is bollocks.”

 

A mattress creaking; Harry could visualise her pushing herself up on her elbows. “I think – it must be the adrenalin.” She sounded near tears.

 

Ron groaned.

 

Hermione shushed him. “ _Quiet_. Harry.”

 

He breathed in, out, debated feigning sleep – but then he opened his eyes. “It's all right,” he said, and rolled onto his back in defeat. “I'm awake too.”

 

No one said anything for a moment.

 

“All right.” Hermione kicked off the covers. “How about a shower? We all smell something awful, and maybe it'll help.”

 

-

 

Harry could hear Ron and Hermione's showers switching on in their respective cubicles. Ron let out a quiet sound of satisfaction that Harry knew; it was the sound he made when he was hungry and had his first mouthful, or when he was stretching out in his bed after a long day.

 

For an indeterminate amount of time, Harry simply stood under the hot spray, head bent, eyes closed. The water beat its way over the aching muscles of his back; the heat helped to loosen the hardness he felt there, and for long moments he simply focused on the feeling of his shoulders dropping and the tension leaving them.

 

“Hermione,” Ron called. His voice sounded odd in the wet space. “Could you toss your soap over the – thingy?”

 

“Don't you have any?”

 

“Nope. The house elves were too busy fighting to re-stock the showers, I reckon.”

 

Harry heard Hermione half-laugh, half-sigh. “Here.” There was the wet thunk of the soap as it hit the floor of Ron's shower.

 

“Thanks.”

 

“Have you got what you need, Harry?” Hermione asked.

 

He looked around. “Yeah.” He reached out and picked up the sponge from its porcelain hold.

 

Once he started scrubbing, he found it hard to stop; the dirt and blood on his skin had caked into a surprisingly stubborn crust, and it was hard to get it off. He heard Hermione and Ron shutting off their showers, the wet padding of their bare feet, but he wasn't done yet. He turned up the heat of the water until it was bordering on painful. Wherever his fingers went on his body, they found the tacky stickiness of the battle still clinging to him, and he rubbed the sponge over himself until he could feel his skin going raw and tingly – and still he felt like he wasn't clean, like the water wasn't hot enough to get it all off, and still he scrubbed harder –

 

Someone knocked softly on the door of the cubicle. He started, and dropped the sponge. “Harry?” It was Ron's voice.

 

“Er – yeah,” he rasped.

 

“You all right, mate?”

 

“Yeah. Fine.”

 

A beat. “You've been in there a long time, so. Just checking.”

 

“I'll be out in a minute.”

 

“Okay. We're, erm. We're going to bed. All right?”

 

Harry bent over to pick up the sponge and squeezed it between his hands. He became aware quite suddenly that the water was almost scalding and stepped out from under the spray, his skin throbbing. “Yeah, all right.”

 

“Okay. Goodnight,” Ron said. “I mean, it's not night, but –”

 

“Yeah. Night.”

 

It was a long moment before he actually left. Harry listened to his footsteps on the tiles, the gentle way he closed the door behind him.

 

When Harry came back into the dorm, the sun had risen to its midday position, painting the floor glorious gold. The brilliant light felt almost offensive after what had happened the previous hours. Ron and Hermione were still and quiet in their beds. After all the nights they'd spent together in the tent, Harry could easily tell from the quality of their breathing that they were really asleep; this knowledge gave him a peculiar sense of relief mixed in with a deep loneliness, that felt like a dark mud sucking at his heels. He stood for a while at the window, looking at the flickering magical fires on the grounds below, the people running around trying to put them out. His heartbeat was still a little too fast for comfort. The smell of burning entered his nostrils; his throat prickled with it. When he closed his eyes, nothing came to him: just darkness. He thought, deliberately, slowly: _I am still alive_. There was no feeling to go along with the thought.

 

He turned away from the window and clambered into bed. Before he put his head down he reached out and touched his wand, his old, trusty, repaired wand – and felt the warmth of its old friendship tingling up his fingers at the contact. He smiled, and felt safe.

 

This time, he lost consciousness as soon as his head hit the pillow.


End file.
